Are you ready, Raider Nation? We’re exactly one calendar month away from the 2024 NFL Draft, set to take place on April 25th. With this year’s draft sporting names such as Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels, and National Championship winner J.J. McCarthy, all eyes are on the quarterback position—more specifically, where quarterback-needy teams league-wide are at and which signal caller these teams prefer. That includes Antonio Pierce and the Las Vegas Raiders, who currently hold the 13th-overall pick.
In the meantime, the annual NFL Owners Meetings took place this weekend in Orlando, Florida. Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce sat down to speak with members of the media, and to what should be no surprise, Las Vegas’ quarterback situation was the main topic.
Will the Silver and Black’s ”Guardian at the gate” roll with 2023 starter Aidan O’Connell moving forward? Is the recently-added Gardner Minshew slated to take over as QB1 in Sin City? Or, are Pierce and his general manager, Tom Telesco, eyeing a quarterback in the upcoming draft?
Pierce let the NFL world know where his head was at.
Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce speaks on Las Vegas’ QB room
By now, most of us have seen NFL Network’s headline floating around regarding Pierce and his admiration for Aidan O’Connell. “At the end of the day, listen, Aidan O’Connell played his a– off. He did a helluva job for us,” Pierce notes, before stating the next man under center in Las Vegas “Goes through Aidan O’Connell.”
“He’s earned that right,” Pierce continued.
But don’t be so fast to jump to conclusions; these sentiments are not an admission to the team being content with the current quarterback room. In fact, Pierce emphasizes the opposite; the Raiders need to add a quarterback, with the draft being the next place to do so.
“Well, you know you can’t have two quarterbacks on the roster, right? So, we know we have to add some,” Las Vegas’ head coach said.
Pierce went on to praise Tom Telesco for his ability to help select franchise quarterbacks. “[Telesco’s] done it for a long time. I got a lot of trust in him. I think he’s seen it wherever he’s been,” Pierce told NFL Network’s Steve Wyche. “Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, becomes a GM with the Chargers, Philip Rivers, Justin Herbert. So, he knows something about quarterbacks. So, I’m going to let him figure it out.”
There’s a lot of time left between now and April 25th, but for now, Pierce and Telesco appear to be on the same page: The Las Vegas Raiders need their franchise quarterback. After all, as Antonio Pierce explained, “If we can make that room the most competitive room on our team, the quarterback room, we’ll be a good football team.”
*Top Photo: Getty Images